Slower than the speed of light, slower than a speeding bullet, its effect is seen when a child falls and there's a gap between his falling and his cry as if the world had been paused then started up again. Sometimes slower still, the cry creeps on silently, to catch him years from then.

Sisyphus decides—why not— to let go of the stone he’s been rolling up a hill for what seems like forever. He falls back, onto the long grass, noticing the deep groove his stone has made in the hillside, remembers how he would always get so far and then it would somehow slip his grasp, start rolling back the way it came, to wait for him at the bottom of the hill. Now it tumbles over a field he’s never seen before, getting smaller, disappearing into the blur of distance.

mobile phone vibrating on my pillow your name in lights

In the weeks after your death, your face, the sound of your voice disappeared from my memory, then came back, projected onto people on the street, turning up everywhere, as if you had swung into a darkness where not even thoughts could reach, and then echoed back, amplified. The dark side of the moon perhaps, I remember you telling me how the moon dragged all living things towards it and we had to fight against its pull.

A lake the size of a small room an island no bigger than a single bed when you set out in your boat you've already arrived to lie on your back beneath a dazzling sun so small you can blot it out with one finger

We fall back on clichés at times like this, I'd rather fall back with you instead, onto the footpath, we could talk things over, a forest of people moving overhead, but you don't want a little room an everywhere scenario, or not with me, not now, besides you're hurrying for work, and the words we use aren't words so much as cries, just random sounds for all the stuff we can't talk about, not yet, not words so much as wolves, they hide behind the sunlit city buildings, getting closer, dodging through the traffic and the crowds, they gather in a circle round us, howling, and when yo

We take it in turns to fall backwards and catch each other, a game to show how much trust you can place in another person. Am I too heavy for you? you ask, falling softly into my arms for the third or fourth time. No, I answer, Of course not, no.

'If a lion could talk, we wouldn't understand it' Wittgenstein Would it talk, but in such a thick, lionish accent we couldn't understand a word, or maybe speak perfect English, or whatever language we happen to speak ourselves, but sound to our biased ears as if it was only growling? Would it play tricks on us, hold long conversations from behind a tree or rock, or call us up on the telephone, selling timeshares in safari holidays?